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Coined as late as the 1910s, the phenomenon is not new. It was referred to in the Hebrew Bible.[1] The word has undergone several changes of meaning since it was first coined and is still used in a variety of senses. According to some sources, the term transvestite today is considered outdated and derogatory.[2]

Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word transvestism (from Latin trans-, "across, over" and vestitus, "dressed") to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing.[3] He used it to describe persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. Hirschfeld's group of transvestites consisted of both males and females, with heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations.[4]

Hirschfeld himself was not happy with the term: He believed that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations.[3] In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve the very first name changes (legal given names were and are required to be gender-specific in Germany) and performed the first reported sexual reassignment surgery. Hirschfeld's transvestites therefore were, in today's terms, not only transvestites, but a variety of people from the transgender spectrum.[3]

Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism. In more recent terminology, this is sometimes called autogynephilia. Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behavior, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex.[3]

After all the changes that took place during the 1970s, a large group was left without a word to describe themselves: heterosexual males (that is, male-bodied, male-identified, gynephilic persons) who wear traditionally feminine clothing. This group was not particularly happy with the term "transvestism".[5] Therefore, the term "cross-dresser" (which has exactly the same meaning as "transvestite") was coined.[5] Self-identified cross-dressers generally do not have fetishistic intentions,[5] but are instead men who wear female clothing and often both admire and imitate women.

This group did—and sometimes still does—distance themselves strictly from both gay men and transsexuals, and usually also deny any fetishistic intentions. It was probably this development that led to the explicit definition of transvestic fetishism as distinctively different from transvestism.[5]

However, when this group of people achieved public attention, they were commonly referred to as transvestites rather than cross-dressers. That led, paradoxically, to yet another usage of transvestism: cross-dressing, male-bodied, male-identified, heterosexual persons. This group typically self-identifies as "cross-dressers".[5]

In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional or ceremonial reasons. For example, in India some male devotees of the Hindu god Krishna, especially in Mathura and Vrindavan, dress in female attire to pose as his consort, the goddess Radha, as an act of devotion.[7] In Italy, the Neapolitanfemminielli (feminine males) wear wedding dresses, called the matrimonio dei femminielli (marriage of the femminielli), a procession takes place through the streets, a tradition that apparently has pagan origins.[8]